


Tend to the Flame

by superqueerdanvers



Series: Hearthfire [2]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Candles, F/F, Fluff, Halloween, S'mores
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:08:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27315286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superqueerdanvers/pseuds/superqueerdanvers
Summary: A series of scenes from Agnes and Leah's first year living together, as they light candles, roast marshmallows, and fall in love.Sequel to Ashes.
Relationships: Agnes Montague/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Hearthfire [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1976161
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	Tend to the Flame

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from "Ashes" by the Longest Johns.

Agnes and Leah had been living together for a few weeks when Leah got out a large, light purple candle. Instantly, Agnes stiffened, remembering the smell of pain and fear and burning. Leah met her eyes with a worried frown. “Agnes? You okay?”

Agnes blinked, then shook herself. “Yeah, sorry, just… remembering things.” She swallowed. “Why are you getting out a candle?”

Leah shrugged. “I just like the scent. Are you sure you’re okay?”

Agnes exhaled and relaxed a little, though her heart continued to pound. “Right. Scented candles.” She leaned forward slightly to get a better look. “I’ve never had one before.” _At least, not one made of normal wax, with a normal scent._

“This one’s my favorite – I love lavender – but I have a few others, too.” She shrugged again. “They’re pretty, and they smell nice. They help me relax.”

_They’re pretty, and they smell nice._ So different from the candles Eugene Vanderstock had made for her. And relaxing. Eugene’s candles had fed her, made her powerful as she drank in the agony and terror they were made of, but they had been anything but relaxing.

“Want to light them together?” Leah asked.

After a moment, Agnes nodded. She could use some relaxing candles in her life.

Leah got out three more candles and a box of matches, then sat down next to Agnes. Agnes watched as Leah pulled out a match, struck it, and moved to light the first candle. Then she hesitated and looked at Agnes. “Do you want to do it?”

Agnes shook her head without taking her eyes off the burning match. Leah touched it to the candle’s wick, and it lit.

Of course it lit, that was what candles did. In her head, Agnes knew that. But none of the candles she’d had had ever truly lit, not with a visible flame. Instead, they had just smoked and smoldered. The flickering yellow flame looked so small and fragile. “It’s beautiful,” she breathed.

Leah smiled and lit a pale pink candle.

Agnes picked it up, entranced by the light. She held it in her lap, both hands wrapped around the glass container. And then she exhaled too hard, and the flame went out.

Leah had lit the other candles and was blowing out the match, but she glanced over at the sound of Agnes’s disappointed sigh. She dropped the blackened match onto the table and picked up another candle. “Hold it over here, we can relight it from this one,” she said.

Agnes cautiously held out her candle. “Tilt it a little?” Leah asked. She reached for Agnes’s wrist, then paused. “Can I touch you?”

“Yeah,” Agnes said softly.

Leah held Agnes’s wrist with one hand and tilted the pink candle so its wick caught a flame from the lit candle. Her fingers were warm and gentle on the inside of Agnes’s wrist, and when she let go, something in Agnes missed her touch.

They set their candles down on the table and watched them in silence for a minute. And then Agnes took a deep breath and spoke. “There’s something I need to tell you. About my past.”

She glanced at Leah out of the corner of her eye, to see her looking back. “And I need you to believe me. I know it’s going to sound… weird, but… please. Trust me. And please don’t tell anyone.”

“Agnes.” Leah’s hand hovered over hers, not quite touching. “Your flat burned down and you got out without a scratch. And then you went to the Magnus Institute the day after you left the hospital. I already knew there was something weird going on.”

So Agnes began to explain, as best as she could. She spoke slowly, thinking through each piece of information she shared. She wanted Leah to know the truth, to understand who she was and where and she came from. But she also knew learning about the Entities could drag someone farther into that world than they already were, and while she didn’t want to lie to Leah, she also didn’t want to throw her into the world she had lost so much escaping. So she stuck to her own past, and to the basics. That she was raised by a cult who worshipped burning and pain and loss, that she had been their chosen one, that she’d had powers. She told Leah about beginning to question her role, to want something more than sacrifices and destruction. Realizing she couldn’t be their chosen one anymore, and telling them to kill her so they might have another chance. Waking up in the hospital, cold and powerless and alone.

“Wait, how did you lose your powers?”

Agnes thought. “I’m not completely sure. But I think it was the self-sacrifice. The Desolation is about causing pain and suffering, taking from others until they have nothing left. Sacrificing myself, volunteering to suffer so the others might still have a chance? I don’t think it liked that.”

“Oh,” Leah said quietly. “I’m sorry, Agnes, I don’t really know what to say—“

“It’s okay. Thank you for listening.” And Agnes took her hand.

* * *

Time went on, and Agnes and Leah grew closer, until one summer weekend when they went camping together. They ate dinner and sat by the campfire for hours, just talking. Agnes, still intensely aware of the pain fire could cause, sat a bit further from the fire, but she had to admit there was something mesmerizing about the dancing flames, and as the sun set and the air grew cool, the fire gave a welcome warmth. Suddenly, Leah stood up, then grinned at Agnes, eyes shining in the firelight. “I just remembered, I brought stuff for s’mores!”

Agnes tilted her head. “S’mores?”

“They’re an American thing – my cousin introduced me to them. Roasted marshmallows and chocolate on graham crackers.”

“I’ve never had them before.”

“To be fair, you’d never eaten anything until like, seven months ago.”

Agnes smiled in spite of herself. “So how do we make them?”

Leah explained that they would need long, pointy sticks to roast their marshmallows on, and she and Agnes searched their campsite. Once they had found two suitable sticks, they skewered their marshmallows, and Agnes tentatively held hers towards the fire. Leah put a hand on hers and guided the marshmallow closer to the flames. “It needs to be a little closer to get all nice and melty and gooey.”

After the months living together, the casual touch didn’t surprise Agnes anymore, but it still gave her a pleasant thrill. As they sat in comfortable silence, watching the flames flicker around their marshmallows, Agnes remembered the other times they had touched that day. Hands brushing as they handed each other things, shoulders bumping as they walked side by side, Leah helping apply sunscreen to the back of Agnes’s neck. Agnes helping Leah with her sunscreen in return, heart racing as she rubbed the white lotion into her friend’s skin.

With a start, she realized her marshmallow was on fire. She pulled it out of the flames, but it kept burning. “Leah—“

Without missing a beat, Leah leaned over and blew it out. She seemed to glow in the firelight as she smiled at Agnes. Agnes, on the other hand, frowned at the blackened marshmallow. “It’s burned,” she said quietly.

Leah shrugged. “I like them burned.” She held her own marshmallow out to Agnes. “Here, we can trade. Mine’s not too burned yet, just a little black on the edges.”

Agnes took the stick and watched as Leah sandwiched the charred marshmallow between graham crackers and chocolate and deftly pulled it off the stick. Setting her own s’more down on a paper towel, she repeated the process with the second marshmallow and handed it to Agnes. Leah bit into her s’more, and Agnes followed suit.

The graham crackers were crisp, and the marshmallow’s heat had softened the chocolate a little. The melted marshmallow was sweet and gooey and stuck to her lips. She tried to wipe it off, with little success. Leah, her own mouth equally messy, laughed. She threw her head back, and the firelight gilded her throat and the glimpse of her collarbones that her button-down allowed. She was so beautiful, even with her face smeared with chocolate and marshmallow, and the sound of her laugh made Agnes feel warm in a way no campfire could. She could listen to that laugh forever.

After a moment, Leah pulled herself together and grabbed a paper towel. “Want help?” she asked, eyes still sparkling with laughter.

Agnes nodded, and Leah gently wiped at the sugar and chocolate spread across her face. Leah’s fingers brushed Agnes’s lips, and Agnes’s heart skipped a beat. Leah adjusted her grip on the towel and moved on to Agnes’s cheeks, but the ghost of her fingers lingered on Agnes’s lips. She wanted Leah to touch her lips again, she wanted to touch _Leah’s_ lips, she—

_Oh._

Suddenly, it made sense. The way she felt when Leah touched her wasn’t just because she was still adjusting to being able to touch people – she’d thought it was, but her heart didn’t leap when she brushed hands with the barista at the coffee shop Leah had introduced her to. It wasn’t touch that made her feel scared and exhilarated and happy all at once; it was touching _Leah_.

“Agnes?”

She blinked, and realized Leah had finished wiping her face and was looking at her with concern. She’d cleaned most of the s’more off her own face as well. “You okay?” she asked.

“Leah, I…” What could she say? She didn’t want to lose Leah, but she knew that now that she’d recognized her feelings, she couldn’t keep pretending she only saw Leah as a friend. “Can I kiss you?”

Leah blinked at her, then slowly smiled. “Yeah,” she whispered, leaning closer.

Agnes took a deep breath, then closed her eyes, leaned in, and pressed her lips to Leah’s. The kiss was brief, and they kept their lips closed, but when they pulled apart and opened their eyes, Agnes couldn’t remember the last time her heart had raced like that.

Leah looked at the fire. “So… was that…?”

“I think I like you,” Agnes said softly.

Leah met her eyes. “I like you, too.” She breathed a sigh and flashed a relieved smile. “I didn’t want to take advantage of you when I know you’ve been through some shit, and God knows I’ve heard so many horror stories about one roommate getting a crush on the other who doesn’t like them back, and I don’t want to make things awkward, but you’re so pretty and sweet and kind and...” She stopped and took a breath. “Yeah, I like you, too.”

Relief flooded Agnes’s body, and all she could do was beam at Leah and say, “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“So… um…” Agnes swallowed. “That kiss…”

“Want to do it again?”

Agnes grinned and nodded, and Leah took her hand and kissed her.

* * *

It was a dark and stormy Halloween night, and Agnes tucked her bare feet under her long skirt. Other than her orange and black silk headband, she dressed as she usually did, in a cream jumper and brown plaid skirt. Leah, on the other hand, was dressed as Wednesday Addams in a black dress, with her hair pulled into two braids. The pumpkins they’d picked out with their friends the week before and carved earlier that day sat on the coffee table. On the TV, Louis de Pointe du Lac began to tell his story, and Agnes leaned her head on Leah’s shoulder.

And then there was a flash of light and a rumble of thunder, and the lights went out. Agnes started, and Leah’s arm around her tightened. “It’s okay,” she said softly. “The power went out. Wait a minute, let’s see if it comes back on.”

Agnes relaxed, curling against Leah again. They waited in the dark, listening to the storm, but nothing happened. Leah sighed. “Or not. I’ve got a torch and matches in the kitchen. Let’s light some candles.”

Agnes went to stand, and Leah caught her hand. “Wait, should we tie back your hair first? It’s just… long, loose hair and open flames…”

Agnes nodded. “Probably a bad idea.” She stood. “I’ll grab the torch and a hair tie.”

“No need, I’ve got one here,” Leah said, and Agnes remembered her tendency to wear extra hair ties on her wrist. “And I don’t need to see to braid your hair.”

Agnes smiled and sat back down with her back to Leah. Leah ran her fingers through Agnes’s waist-length hair, gently combing through the snags and separating the hair into sections. As she braided, Agnes closed her eyes, relaxing into it. Leah tied off the braid and pressed a kiss to the side of Agnes’s neck. Agnes gasped and felt Leah smile against her throat, then turned around and kissed her back. After a moment, Leah pulled away, still giggling. “Okay, but seriously, we should light those candles.”

They made their way to the kitchen and found the torch and Leah’s box of candles and matches. Agnes recognized some of the candles as the scented ones Leah said helped her relax, but there were some smaller, unscented tea lights in there as well. Together, they set candles on the counter, the windowsill, the coffee table. Finally, they set tea lights inside the jack-o-lanterns and lit them.

They stood back, hand in hand, and surveyed the candlelit flat. “Now what?” Agnes asked.

“I guess we find something else to do – we can’t watch the movie without power. Too bad, it’s a really good one. Hey, did you know there’s a musical?”

Agnes shook her head. “No. But then, I’ve also never seen the movie.”

“Good point. And _Lestat_ is… it’s not a _good_ musical, per se – it’s kind of cheesy, and it definitely flopped. But it’s fun, you know? And gay.”

Agnes laughed. “Well in that case!” A moment later, she added, “What’s the music like?”

“Fucking underrated, honestly! There’s this one song that goes _‘Where is the glory in this new me?_

_Where is the feeling of achievement in the shadows of the evening?’_ ”

Leah gestured dramatically as she sang, then took Agnes’s hands and spun her under her arm – or tried to, at least. Without her usual boots, she was several inches shorter than Agnes. Agnes ducked, and they both fell back onto the couch. They lay there, laughing, faces inches apart, features lit by candlelight. Agnes tucked a stray curl behind Leah’s ear and let her hand linger on her cheek. “I love you,” she breathed.

“I love you, too,” Leah replied, and kissed her.

**Author's Note:**

> The song Leah sings is "Embrace It" from "Lestat: the Musical."


End file.
